KPMG reports on developments with digital technologies

Consulting company KPMG has released a report looking at how digital transformation is affecting almost every industrial sector. The report highlights the latest global leaders in innovation, and the technologies they're harnessing.

The report from KPMG discusses the global hubs that are harnessing digital transformation. As the world's dominant countries for tech, it should come as no surprise that China and the U.S. came out in the lead for pushing transformation in business. Shanghai emerged from the report as the up-and-coming leader in technology innovation, with heavyweight New York City right behind.

China's slight uptick could become a much bigger trend as businesses like Tencent, Alibaba and Baidu start to sell overseas. Alibaba's Jack Ma was found to be the world's third-most emerging tech visionary — after Elon Musk and Tim Cook.

KPMG's Richard Hanley, who is the advisory leader in technology, media and telecommunications at KPMG in the U.S., said recently: “The alignment of technology and people investments to allow the redeployment of a workforce to its highest and best use, and to solve previously unsolvable problems, is key for companies to succeed in the future.”

The multinational company's extensive work and research on cloud computing, the Internet of Things, data and analysis, artificial intelligence and robotics demonstrates just how much KPMG is working to foster digital transformation. Many of these technologies are changing rapidly and, for businesses, understating how technologies are changing is key to staying competitive.

The findings of the report break down how digital transformation is moving fast across the globe, but could be better harnessed. Despite there being digital hubs, the culture of each country infuses and informs the strategy, making the need for national understating to play a role in global analysis. These are key distinctions for countries embarking on digital transformation on a global scale. In this section the report emphasizes the value of such analysis: “With stakes so high to compete in a global tech ecosystem, we also examine the global leadership views on innovation management.”

Companies leading the global wave of innovation are tech heavyweights Google, Apple, Microsoft, IBM, Amazon and Tesla Motors. These tech leaders are pushing ahead with emerging technologies to drive change in a big way.

KPMG’s main message is that today’s citizens increasingly expect seamless, online access to public services. With this in mind, all agencies and levels of government should be aligned, and data privacy and security assured.